Welcome to the “compare/contrast” portion of the program. Here’s a video in which a child is cursing at adults and being egged on by said adults:

And here’s another one…

The first one had people howling with laughter about Will Ferrell’s comic genius. The second had the Omaha Police Department showcasing it as an example of a “cycle of violence and thuggery.”

The mother of the child noted she wasn’t in the room when this video was made and that it was the friends of her brother who had instigated this exchange with the child. She also said her son is well cared for and does not enact this kind of behavior of his own volition. That said, the mom noted that “every kid” curses like this child did, so hey…

This is a case where it’s easier to find who’s wrong than who’s right. The cops were wrong for pumping that video out there. It showed no illegal activity and highlighting a 2-year-old kid for no other reason than to poke at people makes little sense. It’s stupid and even if they didn’t intend a “racial component” to it, well, too damned bad. It’s right there.

The mom was wrong for her defense. “Everyone does it” is a horseshit argument no matter where you go. (If you want to be particularly biting and cruel, I suppose you could argue the “everyone does it” defense is probably how she ended up with a toddler at the age of 16.) Not sure if you can blame her for the high level of stupid associated with her brother’s friends, but if you’re not sure how decent people are, you tend to keep them away from your kids.

The idiots who were prompting the kid were wrong. Really? This is a good idea? Rub the three brain cells left in your head together and see if trying to rile a toddler with as many n-bombs as possible sounds smart to you. If this is your idea of a good time, find a new hobby.

Take all of that out of the equasion, however, and you’re left with two videos of adults using cursing toddlers (who were provoked to say things they couldn’t possibly understand) to amuse themselves and others.

It’s not the first time adults provoked children to enact crappy behavior. My dad used to encourage me to punch my uncle “in the yikes.” Thus, when my uncle came out of his bedroom while getting ready for a date, I ran up and clocked him a good one in the nuts. All the adults laughed. Except my uncle, who tried to kill me before I ran behind my dad. This happened a few more times before dad figured out this wasn’t a keen idea. I’m quite certain that this would have been on YouTube had it been around then. Would the State Patrol be posting this as example of family violence? Probably not.

(Also, at the age of 2, I screamed “Son of a bitch! That’s what my daddy says” while in an elevator with my parents and a furniture salesman at an upscale shop. My parents never let me forget it. It wasn’t a felony, however…)

No one seemed to be crawling up Will Ferrell’s ass at the time he put this together. I didn’t see CNN talking about how the Hollywood culture of liberalism was ruining America’s youth. Hey, Will’s a famous comic, so I’m sure it was supposed to be all in good fun… Those Omaha guys? Obviously thugs. And so is that kid. Gotta be, right?

At the end of the day, how people choose to raise kids is their own damned business. The mom clearly wasn’t happy about this and I’m with her calling bullshit on this kerfluffle. I don’t think I’d be thrilled to have to justify why my kid did X, Y or Z to the rest of the world via CNN. Even more, I’m not sure I like the idea that the cops decided to create a morality play out of a toddler’s video.

Perhaps the worst thing, though, is for the people who saw both of these and didn’t have equal reactions. What does that say about how they view our culture?